


Invisible

by nothingeverlost



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Self Harm, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-26 00:59:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1668881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingeverlost/pseuds/nothingeverlost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can breathe again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Invisible

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for self harm
> 
> Post finale

It starts as a single red mark in the middle of his palm, nothing more than you would see from holding onto something too tight. It will fade in minutes.

If he stops.  
The mark darkens. Burns. Spreads slowly over his hand as if the flames he’s held so often in the past were only just now burning his flesh. At the base of his thumb a blister forms, the skin raw as it bursts.

A pattern begins to form, the same pattern burnt into his son’s skin. The mark Neal had carried to his grave. The Dark One’s mark. Where the lines cross at the center of his palm it’s almost black.

The pain isn’t enough.

He curls his hand, not enough to cover the brand, just enough that nerves presses against nerve, the signal shooting up his arm and into his brain.

He can breathe again.

"Rumple, are you in there?" Belle is looking for him. He’s careful, always, making sure he’s alone. That the door’s locked.

Belle is his light, but sometimes there’s no room for the light inside of him. He has to make room, to let out the dark. To feel the pain so that he can feel her love.

"Coming, sweetheart." He waves his hand over his palm. The mark vanishes as if it had never been. The scars of a hundred marks are not visible. But the pain remains. It will be enough to hold onto for now.

Until the next time.


End file.
